Booman Tribune is a self-defined progressive community.
That being said, there are probably as many different ways of approaching electoral politics represented in this community as there are users here.
Some of us come here from a background heavy in progressive issue activism (like the anti-war, civil rights and gay rights movements) and our intersection with electoral politics has been mainly through legislative pressure and protest. Some of us have spent years working diligently for third parties like the Green Party, or organizations like ACORN or the Sierra Club that often find themselves outside the traditional two-party zone. For some of us, the point of entry into electoral politics has been the issue of election reform…whether as a result of the 2000 presidential election or the more recent movement in opposition to electronic voting and the voter suppression of 2004. Others of us are mainstream Democratic progressive activists who’ve participated in the political movements that rose up in support of Howard Dean or MoveOn.org or in progressive labor politics. Finally, as progressives, many of us do not define our “politics” within traditional narrow channels: what’s “political” or “electoral” is even a subject of open debate. Getting real, most of us are some combination of the above.
This series is meant for the whole of the Booman Tribune community. It’s meant to be useful. It’s meant to be collaborative. What I’d like to do here is to provide a forum that can help us discuss how we progressive political activists here at BMT intersect with electoral politics. If you’re interested, please join me below…
Let me state the obvious.
Voting is important. Elections are important. Candidates and elected officials are important. The legislation our govenment passes and the regulations it enforces in many ways define the fabric of our lives. Our entire legal and governmental system begins and ends with what happens at the ballot box. Under our constituional form of government, elections define the playing field even though they respresent only the “beginning of the story.”
What I’d like to do with this series is open up a discussion of how we here at BMT intersect with electoral politics: ie. elections, candidates, platforms. Since this is the start of a series, I’d like to make clear that I am open-ended about how this project will play out. Within the limitations of addressing electoral politics, I want this project to be useful to as broad a segment of this community as possible.
There are, however, some rough goals that I have for this series:
A) I’d like to see us come up with a rough working definition of what “progressive” means for us when we apply it to candidates running for office in the U.S. political system. We may not agree on every point, but I think this kind of a “platform” discussion is worth having.
B) I’d like this series to help us identify candidates and elected officials from the national down to the local level who meet our BMT consensus about what “progressive politics” means.
C) I’d also like this series to provide a forum where we can identify candidates, elected officials and organizations who BEST represent progressive politics on specific issues. For example, as one goal of this project, I’d like to work with BooTribbers to identify candidates and elected officials who are our best allies in working for election reform. Other areas of focus might be the environment, or reproductive rights, or racial justice.
If there’s a guiding sensibility to this project for me, it’s this. In my experience writing online, the process of defining progressive politics has often essentially been negative and repetitive. Year after year, we have the same battles about “third parties” and “sell-out Dems”…about “single issue politics” and “the lesser of two evils.” And when it does come time to rally around candidates, strategies oriented around winning (which, is, of course, critical) tend to trump discussion of what our positive first principles are.
My goal with this project is to be positive and constructive…to seek affirmative answers to the questions we find important. What candidates, what elected officials best represent our views? What organizations best mobilize and intersect with the political system using our values? What is the common ground that we here at BMT can define to stake out what progressive means for us and how do we then communicate that progressive vision in the U.S. political system?
I don’t see this series so much as something I’m writing…as much as a discussion forum/research project that we are collaborating on. (That is, of course, if people choose to participate.) Hopefully this can be a project that will generate some defined content useful for all of us…ie. lists and links…and provide an interesting and relevant discussion in that process.
Ultimately, these posts will form a kind of database that we all can use for future reference. For this process to truly succeed, however, will involve all of us contributing more than just opinions. This series comes with the header: some research required. (If you’re interested in helping me with this project as we go forward or have links to other efforts of this sort, feel free to email me at kidoakland”at”comcast”dot”net.)
Finally, I want to be clear that I can anticipate that for many readers here, discussion of elections AT ALL is impossible to do outside of the context of discussing election reform and verified voting. My hope is that this series will provide a context to do just that. I think we can all agree that identifying the candidates, officials and organizations that are most effectively fighting for election reform is a critical step. Whether it’s a potential “national leader” on this issue, like Debra Bowen who is the Democratic candidate for California Secretary of State, or a local county election official in your home town, we all can agree that identifying and compiling these names is an important part of the process of making real change.
So, let’s begin at the most general point, with an open ended question.
Question: As a progressive, how do you intersect with electoral politics? ie. What has your experience been with elections and candidates and what does electoral politics mean to you? What are your thoughts about this subject?
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(Ed. note/heads up: The next piece will be asking for the “Top Five” (or so) planks of your progressive political platform. The piece following that will ask for your “Top Five” (or so) progressive elected officials or candidates. And the piece following that will be an open call asking for the names of your “Top Five” progressive candidates, elected officials and organizations working on election reform.)
